


Blood In The Water

by synonymsforchocolate



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: 2x21, F/M, Fluff, Hospital Vigil, Spoilers, a little bit of falice, betty reads to jughead, bughead - Freeform, canonish, i needed to fix this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-10
Updated: 2018-05-10
Packaged: 2019-05-04 23:17:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,317
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14603895
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/synonymsforchocolate/pseuds/synonymsforchocolate
Summary: Betty deals with Jughead's injuries post-2x21.***"Now, back in the hospital room, Jughead looks impossibly small. They've washed all the blood off his face and arms as best they could, but without a real shower the crimson evidence of his martyrdom is still painted across his face, giving him a blotchy red tint. There are staples in his head -- the sight makes her cringe -- and he is so bandaged it looks almost intentional, like a Halloween costume or a toilet paper prank. His left arm is the worst bit, wrapped double the amount anywhere else is but still bleeding through. Someone -- Sweet Pea, probably -- has taken a Sharpie and drawn a wobbly serpent over the top layer of gauze, and he's not unartistic; it looks good. She bites the inside of her cheek. Leave it to Jughead to look cool while in critical condition."





	Blood In The Water

**Author's Note:**

> I promised myself when I joined this fandom that I would never write fanfiction...ah, well. I needed to make everything okay again after the trauma of last night.

There are two many little details for this to be a dream, she thinks. Too many things she can see and feel and touch. 

 

They're at the cemetery, which Betty had been all but unfamiliar with until these last few months. The ground is starting to thaw and the grass crunches a little under her feet as they move forward. She's wearing that dress, that same black dress from Jason's memorial. She tugs at it the same way she did that day in her room, when Jughead had appeared before her in his suit and she had been unable to draw her eyes away from how his shoulders fidgeted under her gaze, the crookedness of his tie, the scheme in his eyes. 

 

She's got his beanie. It's right here, in her hands. _Fuck,_ she thinks. _If I've got his beanie, then where--_

 

She senses Archie to her left. He's crying -- she can't really see him, but she knows it's happening and it frightens her. Veronica stands on her other side, squeezing her hand. There's a grave. 

 

 _No no no no no._ The beanie feels rough in her hands. _No no no._

 

_Forsythe Pendelton Jones III_

 

 _He would hate that_ , she thinks.

 

There's a small crown etched underneath his name, and a quote she recognizes as being from his manuscript. That someone could have gotten ahold of his unfinished novel doesn't make sense to her; Jughead had always said that only over his dead body… _oh._

 

She's holding flowers, and they smell good. She doesn't want them to smell good, doesn't want anything good in her life anymore. 

 

Both Veronica and Archie are looking at her. There's resolution in the air, like they have all been preparing for this moment. Like she's supposed to say something. 

 

_Deep breaths. In, and back out._

 

There's a beeping coming from somewhere, low and annoying. She can hear her mother's voice in her head, saying her name. 

 

"Elizabeth, honey."

 

 _Not now, Mom. This is important._ She steps forward, toward the grave. 

 

"Elizabeth."

 

***

 

When she wakes up, her mother is there. Alice is kneeling by the chair that Betty has been sleeping on, her hand resting on her daughter's cheek.

 

"Do you want me to get you anything?" She has never heard her mother's tone so soft. 

 

She shakes her head; she doesn't feel any hunger, but even if she did, it wouldn't matter. Food, water, sleep -- those aren't needs anymore. They have been bumped slightly lower on the priority list. 

 

"What time is it?" Betty asks her mother.

 

"It's morning. You've been asleep for a few hours, sweetie." 

 

She just barely remembers getting to the hospital the night before. Before, when she worried about situations like this, she'd always imagined running down the white marbles halls, frantic and searching, but it hadn't been anything like that. She'd floated into the lobby in a daze around three in the morning -- it could have been four -- and been nearly unable to tell the attendant who she was looking for, choking out a clogged, "Jughead Jones?" and hoping the attendant would know who she needed.

 

They'd led her to his room, and every step closer to a Jughead that was alive enough to _have_ a hospital room was a relief. When she saw him, she started breathing again. He was alone in the room; she wondered if something had pulled FP back to the Serpents. He'd looked awful, and so, so small, but she didn't care. She'd crawled delicately on the bed with him -- the non-IV side -- and curled against him, careful not to touch him, only to match the shape of his body with hers. She'd fallen asleep almost instantly, now that he was near. 

 

"I can't believe I fell asleep." She kicks herself; she should have stayed awake, in case he woke up. "Why I am not in the bed?

 

FP appears in the doorway, his voice low but steady. "I moved you to the chair around five this morning, when they took him for some tests," he says.

 

"Is he…?" She doesn't know how to ask this. "What's his prognosis?"

 

"Some broken ribs, one of which collapsed a lung. A broken ankle. There was a little internal bleeding, but they got that, uh…under control, I guess. Lots of bruises, lots of cuts. They beat the shit out of him pretty good."

 

Betty gulps. She can feel her mother looking at her.

 

"They did some scans this morning. Brain activity looks okay, but we don't know if…now we're just waiting for him to wake up." FP continues. There's some uncertainly to the way he says it, like he's afraid his son might not open his eyes at all. 

 

"Okay," Betty says. "Okay."

 

Alice cuts in. "Betty, dear, I want you to come home later for dinner. Come home, shower, let me feed you something other than Riverdale General's inedible hospital slop."

 

"Okay," Betty says again, not really listening. Alice pulls her daughter's chin up to meet her eyes and looks at her with the same expression of skepticism that Betty once used on Jughead, when she needed him to know that Riverdale was just as much his home as hers. "I got it, Mom. I'll be home," she resigns. 

 

Both parents leave then, and Betty is alone with Jughead in the hospital. She doesn't miss Alice grabbing FP hand as they disappear down the hall, but she isn't ready to process that right now, because Jughead is here. She can really see him now, the immediate terror and sleep deprivation washed away. 

 

He still looks beautiful. The curves of his upper arms, totally devoid of strength, and the drop of his chin look graceful somehow. She can't look at his face. Not without seeing the blood. He hadn't looked like her boyfriend in that moment, she remembers. He'd looked like someone else entirely. 

 

Betty wishes she didn't remember that moment. FP, looking like a man untethered, wild and dead in the eyes. Cheryl whimpering softly behind her. Sweet Pea, unconsciously touching his neck where his own Serpent tattoo resided. Feeling like her tongue was cotton and her blood had turned to hot cement. And Jug, his head lolling back like a rag doll, with so much blood on his face that it looked like his skin had been peeled back. Somewhere in the back of her brain she'd almost wanted to laugh -- this had been a game of Archie's, when they were kids. He'd take the ketchup packets from their Pop's takeout and squirt some on his chin or arm, waving it around dramatically. "I'm bleeding! I'm bleeding!" he'd yell, and then flop over like a toppled bowling pin. Why had blood -- injury, hurt, pain, any of it -- why had that been so damn funny once? 

 

"Get Betty out of here!"

 

It had been Archie who'd screamed, and thus broken the reverie. She'd been standing there, rocking back and forth like a woman possessed and mouthing her boyfriend's name unconsciously, when he'd yelled. 

 

The dam broke, and she'd started flailing, crying, shaking. She vaguely, just barely, remembers Cheryl and Toni coming up behind her, grabbing her arms, holding her back and pulling her to the ground. She'd watched as Sweet Pea and Archie had rushed over to help FP lift Jughead into the bed of a truck, struggling to corral his flopping limbs. The way they'd lifted him, so slowly, was like watching him float up, up, up, like a weird human hot air balloon. Almost majestic, if it weren't for the heaviness of the atmosphere and the blood running down his arm, dripping from his fingers. She wanted to sprint forward and grab him around the waist, to wrap her arms around her beloved and pull him back to this earth. She had thrashed in her friends' arms, fighting their hold.

 

"Betty, don't!" Cheryl had cried. But Betty was a lot stronger than she looked -- _thank you, Cheryl Blossom's cheerleading practice --_ and she'd broken free. 

 

Her eyes connected with Archie's as they lay him down in the bed of the truck, and he'd shaken his head at her. _No,_ he seemed to say, _you don't want to be this close._ But he couldn't begrudge her what she wanted in this moment. Betty had grabbed Jughead's hand and placed it atop his chest, over his heart. She tried not to look at all the blood. 

 

 _Where's his beanie?,_ she had thought first.  _Did they take it? I'll kill them._

 

"It'll be okay, Jug," she had chanted. A mantra more for herself than anyone else. "It'll be okay. It'll be fine, I know it."

 

They stayed like that for a few seconds, Betty offering her prayers to the dark night, before FP, who unlike Archie seemed unburdened by her need to be close to her boyfriend in that moment, wrestled her away.

 

"Betty, Betty," he'd said, shaking her shoulders a little. "You don't want to see this. Let us take him to the hospital, I'll call you from there."

 

"What about the ambulance?" she'd spluttered back.

 

"No," said FP. "We're taking him now." She'd almost laughed again, because of course there wasn't going to be an ambulance. _This shit town._

 

She nodded, all the fight gone out of her. "Please don't let him go," she whispered, and the look FP gave her in return made her wonder why she ever thought adults were really grown up. 

 

She hadn't gone straight to the hospital. She'd gone to the trailer. Ended up there, really, in a complete daze. Cheryl had offered to take her back to Thistle House, where she and Toni were going ("I think some familial asylum on this night of terror is in order, Cousin Betty") but she'd declined, asking Archie to drop her off at Pickins Park. She could walk to the trailer park from there. He'd looked concerned, but again, he didn't want to deny her. 

 

She'd felt like a ghost, walking along the gravel to the Jones trailer. Strangely impervious.  _If a car hit me right now, would it hurt?_ She didn't think so. Nothing could hurt, not after this. 

 

If she hadn't already been broken, the sight of his bedroom would have done it. Suddenly, all his things, which were so very familiar to her, stood out with new importance, like hallmarks of who Jughead had been. _Who he is,_ she reminded herself. _He's not going to die. He's not._ There were his books. His American Werewolf poster. The blue flannel sheets. The picture of Jellybean stuck in the lower corner of the window. All of the things he loved, and all of the things she in turn loved about him.

 

Betty had grabbed a change of clothes and a few books, one she knew he was reading and two she knew he loved. She took his toothbrush. She took the pizza socks he'd been wearing that night, the night of Veronica's confirmation. Just because. Just in case he woke up and she wasn't there, she wanted him to have a reminder that she wanted him, in all the ways there were. She found his beanie sitting on the couch and packed that, too. 

 

Now, back in the hospital room, Jughead looks impossibly small. They've washed all the blood off his face and arms as best they could, but without a real shower the crimson evidence of his martyrdom is still painted across his face, giving him a blotchy red tint. There are staples in his head -- the sight makes her cringe -- and he is so bandaged it looks almost intentional, like a Halloween costume or a toilet paper prank. His left arm is the worst bit, wrapped double the amount anywhere else is but still bleeding through. Someone -- Sweet Pea, probably -- has taken a Sharpie and drawn a wobbly serpent over the top layer of gauze, and he's not unartistic; it looks good. She bites the inside of her cheek. _Leave it to Jughead to look cool while in critical condition._

 

Looking at him now, all she can think about are the words he'd said to her over the phone. That stupid phone call.  _How dare he do that to me,_ she thinks, but at the same time she is so, so grateful he did. Grateful for the knowledge that he loves her, that he loves her a lot. That he knew her well enough to call her beforehand, to give her every piece of him he can spare. 

 

Betty reaches into her backpack and extracts his grey beanie. She figures she'll hand it over to FP in time, but for now she wants it here. The hat isn't going to fit over the many bandages on his head, so she slides her hand to the base of his neck slowly, letting her fingers run a course they've practically memorized.

 

This is the first time she's touched him since it happened. She'd held his hand when they were putting him in the bed Sweet Pea's truck, but that hadn't registered in her brain at the time. That hadn't been her Jughead. This touch is soft, and it heals her a little. Gently, ever so gently, the way you would a baby, she lifts his head and positions the beanie on the hospital pillow, so that he rests on it lightly. This is the best she can do for him. 

 

Next she lifts up Jughead's copy of The Shining, also nabbed from his bedroom, and opens it to their spot. She rests it against the lip of the bed and begins to read aloud, continuing where they'd left off. This had become a tradition of theirs recently, after that first night she'd spent in his trailer, in the aftermath of the drag race. It seemed like so long ago now, but really it was only a few weeks back, as evidenced by their still-slim page count. They'd been curled up in his bed after a heated horizontal tangle and she'd been silently playing with his fingers -- a habit Jughead recognized as a manifestation of her worry. 

 

"Here," he had said, sitting in and loosing his arm from under her neck. "Let's read something." He'd fished around under his bed -- there seemed to be an organizational system under there, but for the life of her Betty couldn't figure it out -- and pulled out the Stephen King thriller. 

 

She rolled her eyes. "Jug, you've read that a thousand times. This book looks like it survived Pompeii," she had protested. "Let's pick something else."

 

"This is a classic, Betts," he had pouted. "Come on. I'll read it to you. It'll be spooky." He'd propped himself up on one arm and leaned over to whisper seductively in her ear. "Chapter One," he'd murmured, his breath in her ear making her twitch.

 

"Jughead Jones," she'd laughed. "You always know how to get my heart rate up."

 

From then on they would read a few pages of the book whenever they could, usually during their postcoital moments. It made Jughead content in a way she didn't often see, made him smile that soft smile and tap his fingers lightly against her bare stomach. Now, reading aloud in this stupid, sterile hospital room, Betty tries very hard not to think about the difference in circumstance in this recitation. For one, she hasn't just had an orgasm, and for two, it has always been him reading to her. But this will do, for now.

 

She reads on and off until the lights in the hospital parking light turn on and the outside world looks dim, as if it's losing battery power along with Betty's own strength. The return of nighttime makes her nervous. At some point FP returns, flitting in and out of the room to manage the Serpents in the waiting room and the doctors in the hallway. It must be nearing dinnertime, she knows. The next time FP leaves the room, Betty stands up and leans over Jughead's bed. 

 

"Our story's not over," she says, sounding more tearful than she'd like. "It's just beginning." Her voice is full of the patented Cooper determination. He's going to wake up. They're going to have a life together, and she has to say it out loud. She needs to him to know. 

 

She kisses him when she leaves and slips the night nurse her phone number. "You have to call me," she says, and it's a plea, without elaboration or condition. The nurse seems to understand. 

 

She stands outside the hospital, hesitant to leave. She doesn't feel like she would be abandoning him -- FP is here, Fred and Archie are in the waiting room, her mother has promised to be a phone call away. It's the physical distance that bothers her. Right now, when she's out of his sight, her heart beats at an uncomfortably quick pace, the perpetual precursor to a panic attack. 

 

_Get it together, Betty. Knock it off._

 

_He's going to be okay. He has to be okay._

 

***

 

Her phone wakes her up in the morning. She'd left it on ringer in case the nurse or the doctor had called. This time, it's nobody medical. It's FP. 

 

"Hello?"

 

"Betty." The voice is not FP's.

 

"Jug?" she breaths. She screws her eyes closed and actually pinches herself, because this could so easily be another nightmare.

 

"I'm happy to hear your voice," he says, and she doesn't know whether to laugh or to burst into tears, so she does both, letting out a huff of relief. 

 

"Me too, Jug. You have no idea," she chuckles through swimming vision. 

 

"Well," he says lightly. "I know I promised I'd see you soon. But do you think you could come to me? I'm a little worse for the wear."

 

It is so good, _so good,_ to hear him joking again. Suddenly, the physical distance between them feels like a bug bite she has to scratch. She calls Archie to drive her to the hospital and doesn't speak the entire way there, just taps her feet methodically and tightens her ponytail. When they arrive, Archie fumbles through a lie about going to find better parking and drops her off, giving her a head start. 

 

He's sitting up when she gets there, back to being larger than life, and it almost gets the image of FP carrying him out of the woods out of her brain forever. 

 

_Oh, thank god._

 

"Hey," he says jovially. "Miss me?"

 

She bites her bottom lip and draws her eyebrows together, tying not to openly weep. He's looking at her in a way she's never seen before, like maybe she's a free burger at Pop's or a Blue and Gold article he's particularly proud of, like she's golden, like he's going to look at her this way every day of his damn life. All the sudden, she's almost mad.

 

"You _scared_ me, Jug," she says, going to sit by his knees.

 

He tugs her closer. "It's just never-ending horror around here, isn't it?" She stares at him. "I know," he sighs. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, Betts. I won't do it again."

 

"Does anything hurt? Do you need anything?"

 

"Not anymore." He grins, and his smile is the only thing she can see for a moment. 

 

"You know," she starts. "On the phone, last night, I didn't get to say it back."

 

"Oh yeah?"

 

Betty leans closer, scooting farther up the bed. "Yeah," she breathes.

 

He reaches out and cups her cheek in one hand, and it's familiar in a way that is utterly devastating, considering their last few hours, days, weeks. 

 

"I wanted to say I love you, too. I'll never stop loving you, Jug."

 

"Sounds familiar," he says, his face inching closer. "You plagiarize that? That's unlike you, Betts."

 

She shuts him up with a kiss then, and there, in a hospital room that has seen her darkest hours, everything is okay again. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
